The 2022 Miami Open champion, Carlos Alcaraz, won his first match at the 2022 Barcelona Open after defeating Soonwoo Kwon in three sets.
After having a stunning Sunshine Double swing at the Indian Wells and Miami Open and winning the Rio Open earlier this year, Carlos Alcaraz quickly became one of the biggest favorites to win the 2022 Roland Garros.
However, the Spaniard lost his opening match at the 2022 Monte-Carlo Masters to Sebastian Korda, and doubts about his clay-court performance appeared.
Starting the 2022 Barcelona Open as the fifth-seeded, all eyes were on Alcaraz as people expected him to show a better performance than in Monaco. In the first round, he took on Soonwoo Kwon, who took care of a few surprises in his career already.
However, except for a little moment in the second set, Alcaraz showed a very dominant performance this time to start his campaign at the ATP 500 event in Barcelona, and advance to the third round of the tournament.
In the first set, he quickly built a 5-0 lead and went on to win the set 6-1 after just 27 minutes. The youngster led 2-0 and 30-15 in the second set, however, he suddenly lost 6 games in a row and lost the set.
But he managed to pull out his A-game in the third set again, to win the match 6-1, 2-6, 6-2 in just an hour and 35 minutes. Only recently, Boris Becker suggested that the youngster may need to take a break, but his performance in Barcelona probably proved everyone wrong.
In the third round, Alcaraz will face a very difficult opponent on clay, fellow countryman Jaume Munar. The Spanish wild card defeated Gian Marco Moroni in the first round, before eliminating the ninth-seeded Nikoloz Basilashvili in the second round of the tournament.